


sure as the stars

by dollylux



Series: Fic Advent Calendar 2015: Siblings, Husbands, Lovely Ladies, and Other Miscreants [13]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Codependent Winchesters, Cuddling & Snuggling, M/M, Overprotective Dean, Pre-Series, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Weecest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-13
Updated: 2015-12-13
Packaged: 2018-05-06 12:30:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5417180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dollylux/pseuds/dollylux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean knew that letting Sam walk home from school alone was a bad idea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	sure as the stars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [homo_pink](https://archiveofourown.org/users/homo_pink/gifts).



> day thirteen | prompt: christmas tree
> 
> (dean is 14; sam is 10. this is largely not sexual, but it's definitely very intense between them.)
> 
> (yum.)

Dean’s known for awhile that Sam is his. 

It’s something that he’s known probably his whole life, something that’s been true since he was four and dreaming of fires and the smell of burning skin and how tiny his brother had been in his arms when he’d carried him from the house, saving them from the horror that took Mom.

And for that reason, he and Dad have come to a wordless understanding about Sam: Dean is involved in most of the decision-making when it comes to Sammy, and even though Dad has no problem overriding him, he still gets a say.

Here in Amherst, Massachusetts just after Thanksgiving, Dad had ignored Dean’s pleas and made a decision about Sam. 

_Dean’s_ Sam.

“He’s too little,” Dean argues, his hands balled up in fists at his sides as he glared up at their father. Dean will never, ever fight for himself, but he’ll fight for Sammy until he doesn’t have a voice. “Somethin’ could happen.”

“He’s ten, Dean! He’s not a baby anymore. The school’s only two blocks away.” Dad shoves some socks into his duffel and zips it up, hurrying toward the door while he shoves it onto his shoulder.

“Dean, I _want_ to,” Sam tells him from the couch. Dean turns to look at him, at his ten-year-old little brother who’s too short for his feet to touch the floor where he’s sitting. His nose is red because of a cold that just won’t let him go, his hair so long it’s starting to curl at the ends.

The hair, that’s something that Dean had gone toe-to-toe with Dad about, too. Dean had taken the clippers out of Dad’s hands and begged him to let Sam keep his hair because he likes it, because it’s _his_ head. 

He knows he’s being a hypocrite right now. He doesn’t care.

“What if you get lost? What if you fall? What if somebody pulls up in a van and takes you? How’s anybody gonna know? How’m _I_ gonna know?” Dean walks over and sits next to Sam on the couch, reaching over for his hand and squeezing it pleadingly. He can feel Dad’s eyes on them from the open doorway where he’s letting in an arctic blast of air from outside.

“It’s two blocks away,” Sam points out, his small hand engulfed in Dean’s. “I’ll walk straight home after school. I’ll be okay. I can take care of myself.”

“See? He can take care of himself. I’ve gotta go. Be back in a week. Don’t answer the door, don’t answer the phone unless--”

“Daaad,” Dean sighs, casting a world-weary glance up at his father. “I know.”

Dad’s jaw tenses, and he looks about five seconds away from a lecture, but he only shakes his head.

“Take care of your brother.”

Dean holds back a scowl. He nods, once and furtively, his hackles up because he hates hearing that from Dad, more than anything.

Don’t have to tell Dean to take care of what’s his. 

 

High school gets out half an hour later than the middle school here, and it’s twenty minutes further from where they’re renting a house than Sam’s school, too. It would take Dean nearly an hour to get to Sam, and that’s too long to ask him to wait for Dean to walk him home.

So on Monday, after Dean makes Sam promise him that he’ll bundle up nice and warm and be extra careful, Dean has to let Sam walk home from school. Alone.

When 3:30 rolls around, he’s out of his seat like a shot, shoving a couple of jocks out of the way to be the first one to leave the classroom.

He can’t run because the sidewalks are icy slick, but he hurries as fast as he can to get home.

He bursts through the front door, his face red, his lungs burning from the freezing cold air he’s been gulping in for the last half hour, his eyes darting frantically around the room in search of his baby brother.

“Hey, Dean.”

Sam is draped over the chair in the corner, his socked feet dangling over the edge, a fat, unabridged copy of _The Three Musketeers_ spread out in his lap. He’s sucking on a candy cane, and he looks warm and all in one piece and perfectly fine.

Dean leans against the doorframe, breathing hard, his body weak with relief.

“Heya, Sammy,” he sighs, a tired smile tugging at his face.

“Can you close the door? It’s cold.” He picks his book back up and slurps around the candy cane, lowering his eyes back down to the page. 

Dean obeys, closing the door and locking it, dropping his backpack in a chair at the kitchen table before opening the fridge to grab a Sunkist.

“Was the walk home okay? Did anybody bother you?”

“No, Dean,” Sam says, his voice thin with annoyance and impatience, but he doesn’t look up. “Everything was fine.”

“It’s supposed to snow tomorrow,” he tells him, popping the top on his can and crossing the room to stand over his little brother. “You better promise me--”

“What’re we having for dinner?” Sam asks, lifting his eyes to find Dean’s and talking around the candy cane in his mouth, clicking against his teeth.

“Meatloaf.” Dean hesitates, wanting to pick up his lecture again and then acutely realizing how much he’s starting to sound like Dad. He drops it. “We’ll get it started here soon, okay?”

“Mm.” Sam nods, keeping his eyes on Dean, the mischievous little twinkle in them unmistakable. 

Dean smirks at him, reaching down to pull the candy cane from Sam’s mouth and pushing it into his own. He sucks it clean of Sam’s spit while he searches his eyes, throwing him a little wink before shuffling over to the couch.

“You’re gonna chop the onions,” Dean says, laying back on the couch and grabbing the remote. He can feel Sam’s socked toes pressing against the top of his head, and he knows quietly that he shouldn’t love it as much as he does.

There’s a lot about Sam that he shouldn’t love as much as he does. Not gonna stop him.

 

The next day after school, Dean is calmer, a little more assured that no one is going to kidnap Sam right off the sidewalk (but not completely; Sam is really, _really_ adorable), he walks home like a normal human being.

He’s frozen to the bone by the time he rounds the last corner to the street their little house is on, and he nearly slips and falls when he realizes that the short stack shuffling along in the snow ahead of him is Sam.

“Hey!” Dean calls out to him, hurrying down the sidewalk to catch up. “Sammy!”

Sam turns to him, those greenbrownblue eyes big and surprised when they find Dean’s.

“Dean, are you okay?” He’s frowning now, looking concerned for _Dean_ , like he’s not the one who’s--

“What are you doin’? Why are you comin’ home so late? Did somebody mess with you?” He quickly looks Sammy over before whirling around to survey the otherwise empty street, squinting for somebody’s ass to kick.

“No. Dean, it’s fine. I just stopped at the library. Got a new book.” Sam hates the middle school library, feels bored with its out-of-date contents and its juvenile selection, and so the second thing they’d done when they got to Amherst, after finding something to eat, was get him a library card.

Sam pulls a book out of his backpack as proof.

Dean’s eyebrows fly up.

“ _Moby Dick?_ Aren’t you a little young for that?” He grabs the book from him and flips it over to read the summary thingie on the back.

“Dean, what do you think _Moby Dick_ is about?” He sounds curious and like he’s smiling, and he’s looking up at Dean from under his lashes when Dean finally makes eye contact again.

“Shuddup,” he mutters, blushing as he pushes the book back into Sam’s hands. “C’mon, get in the house. You’re freezing.”

He fusses over the fact that Sam isn’t wearing his gloves while his own frozen hands seek out the heat at the small of Sam’s back, press under a couple of his layers to needlessly guide him toward the house. 

 

The next day after school, he walks into a dark house. He stops there in the doorway, snow whirling behind him and gusting into the house in lazy, white drifts.

“Sammy?” He can’t help that he sounds more fearful than annoyed. There’s nobody here to judge him for it anyway. “Sammy!”

A quick tour of the tiny house proves it. He paces in circles a few seconds around the kitchen table while his heart thuds in his throat, helpless with all the dread suddenly coursing through him.

He hurries into his room and reaches under the pillow for his butterfly knife. He tucks it into his back pocket and runs out of the house.

He stalks the cheerfully lit streets in an icy-cold fury, eyes narrowed and searching, ready to pull his knife out and take care of anybody who would fucking _dare_ \--

“Dean!”

There through the drifts of white, in the failing light, on the other end of the sidewalk, is his Sammy.

“Sam!” He takes off at a run, falling be damned, relief flooding his body so profoundly that it hurts to move at all. He calms down the second he can actually see Sam’s face, he takes the last few steps he needs to and drops to his knees right there in front of him, denim sinking through snow and connecting with the frozen sidewalk. He cups Sam’s cheeks and stares up into his eyes, his jaw tense.

“I’m sorry, Dean. I’m s--”

“You okay?” he gruffs out, thumbs circling the apples of Sam’s cheeks to try and warm them. Sam is tearful now, eyes like thawing ice. He’s got his arms wrapped around that damn book, clutching at it. 

“Y-Yeah. I was reading and I lost track of time. I’m sorry. I didn’t--”

“Get in the house,” Dean sighs, deflating under all the emotion on Sam’s face, in the tremble of his voice. All the fight leaves him, and he slides his hands from Sam’s face down to his arms that he grips hard enough to creak bone, to leave faint bruises. Sam doesn’t whimper, doesn’t try to pull away, just stares down into Dean’s eyes, seeming to soak in the closeness of their bodies and the strangely reassuring comfort of the painful grip Dean has on him.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, moving a little then, like he’s trying to get closer, wants to burrow in against Dean.

“Say it again,” Dean tells him, his voice low. His hands slip down and grip at Sam’s tiny waist.

“I’m sorry.” The fourth time in under a minute Sam’s said it, but this one comes out like a sigh. Dean’s tongue darts out to lick at his bottom lip as he searches Sam’s bright eyes, obsessed with how heavy Sam’s eyelashes look right now, with how languidly he’s moving in Dean’s grip, like he’s enraptured.

Dean draws him into his body with forgiveness, and Sam nearly drops his book in his rush to wrap his arms around Dean’s neck, tucking his smallness into Dean’s chest. Dean hugs him tight, too tight, his hands sweeping all over Sam’s back as he lets out quiet shushes right against Sam’s ear. He grips Sam’s little boy hips, giving them another one of those bruising squeezes before he pulls back and presses a kiss to Sam’s forehead, keeping his mouth there just to breathe him in, just for a few seconds.

Dad’s not here to catch him doing it, not here to yell at him for being so close to Sammy, too close. Not here to make him feel ashamed.

“Let’s go home,” he whispers against Sam’s cold skin. He closes his eyes, tucking the moment up tight in his chest, and stands up.

 

He makes a silent decision the next day. If Sam’s late again, he’s going to order him to go to the library and wait for Dean there so they can walk home together. It’s too risky, too dangerous out there for anything else.

When he comes home to an empty house again, he grits his teeth so hard they creak. He throws his bookbag on the kitchen table.

“He knows better,” he mutters to himself, pacing the kitchen like an expectant mother. “He fuckin’ knows--”

The phone rings loud in the quiet house, making him jump so fast he nearly falls. What if it’s the hospital? Or the cops? Or Sam’s school? 

“Shit,” he whispers, lunging for the phone and snatching it off the receiver. “H-Hello?” He squeezes his eyes shut and braces for it.

“Dean,” comes Dad’s strained voice. “I need your help.”

Dean’s eyes fly open again. He stands up straight and adjusts his grip on the phone.

“Yessir. What do you need?”

 

Ten minutes later, Dean has dragged out the three boxes of books that Dad calls “the library” but are really just books they’d borrowed from Uncle Bobby years ago and never brought back. He has a list of oddities, of strange things done to corpses and whatever weirdness Dad had heard from witnesses, and he’s trying to piece it together into a monster.

“Lamia,” Dean says to himself after an hour buried in the books, his fingertips dry from touching hundreds of old pages. He calls Dad back and gives him the report (child-eating demon, kill it with a silver knife blessed by a priest) and sits back to rub his eyes. The kitchen is nearly dark because he’d forgotten to turn on any lights but the one over the stove, and it’s pitch black outside, probably nearly six o’clock--

Sammy.

“Sam,” Dean gasps, flying up from the chair, a terror seizing him so completely that he actually falls back down into it.

It’s late. It’s so late, way too late. He should be here by now. The library closes at five. He should be here by now.

“Ohmygod. Ohmygod,” he breathes, standing up now on trembling legs, trying to force his coat onto his body but he’s shaking too hard to do it right. He growls in frustration, finally getting the sleeve turned the right way.

He bursts outside and down the stairs, faced with the stark white of the snow and the pitch black of everything else. It’s a new moon and the stars are stifled by snow clouds, the whole of the evening close, dark.

“Sammy!” He yells, his voice echoing down the empty street, going unanswered.

He digs his boots in and starts down the street, running as fast as his legs can carry him toward the school.

His voice is hoarse from screaming by the time he gets there, and the school is so small it takes under five minutes to search its grounds: no Sammy.

The library is a couple of blocks over, and he makes it there in what feels like seconds, his lungs burning, heart thudding in his ears, making him deaf to anything but the frenzied beat of it and the shuddering sound of his own breathing.

He pulls the handle on the door and finds it locked, of course. He cups his hands and presses his face to the glass, peering into the library, seeing nothing in the darkened building except an eerie, paused stillness. It’s completely empty.

He steps back from the door, panting, staring helplessly up at the unlit building.

Something’s happened. Something’s taken him. God, something’s--

An unmistakable clarity washes over him out of absolutely nowhere, but it makes him pause, makes him hold his breath: _wait. look._

He turns his head to the right, squinting at the side of the library that faces Main Street. He can see a faint glow from there of a myriad of colors, and he’s walking toward it before he even realizes it.

A giant tree comes into view, lit-up bright with fat, old-fashioned bulbs and glittering with gold and silver tinsel. The ornaments are huge, some the size of Dean’s head, and he’s a little stunned as he stares up at it.

Kinda gaudy for a library, ain’t it?

There, at the foot of the tree, curled up in the snow, is his life.

“Sammy,” he breathes. He’s so overcome with too many emotions, all of them big and terrifying in their power, to move. Sam is so small beneath that giant tree that he looks like a doll.

Dean stumbles in his rush to get to him, and the second he gets his hands on Sam, his eyes flood with tears.

“ _S-Sammy_.” He grips his arm and shakes him, trying to be gentle but fear takes over, makes him hold on a little too hard. Sam gasps awake, his eyes flying open as he sits up, his cheeks dangerously pink, his sweet little mouth almost blood red. It’s a miracle he’s not completely frozen.

“Dean.” His teeth are chattering, the tears in his eyes and the snot running from his nose both glistening in the lights of the tree behind him. “Dean, what--”

Dean grabs him by the front of his coat and hauls him into his arms, wrapping his own tight around Sam’s tiny, frozen body, pulling Sam’s face into the warmth of his neck.

“Don’t you _ever_ ,” he growls, sobs hiccuping up from his throat and ruining his frantic anger with tears, “ _ever_ do that again.”

Sam is crying now, face buried in Dean’s neck, arms wrapped so tight around him that he’s choking off Dean’s air.

“I didn’t mean to,” he sobs, small and frightened. “I like to--to come out here and look at the tree. I like the lights o-on it. I just look for a little bit. I come out here and read and--”

He pulls back finally, his eyes so massive and heartbreaking that Dean melts in the face of them. He cups Sam’s cheeks and presses their foreheads together, their breath rushing white and warm in the cold night, over each other’s skin. He can taste Sam’s tears, his runny nose, the heat from inside his sugary little mouth, and he closes his eyes to take it all in. 

“Promise me, Sammy,” he whispers, not even knowing what he’s saying, what he means. He just has to talk so he won’t cry, too. 

“I promise.” Sam’s breath hitches, shuddering little wet sounds caught in his throat, and Dean runs his hands down Sam’s body, not stopping until he gets to his thighs. He grabs hold of them, of his baby bird of a little brother, and pulls him up onto his body. He cradles him close and stands up, reaching down for Sam’s backpack and tugging it up onto his shoulder.

“I’ve got you,” Dean murmurs against Sam’s ear, running his nose along the shell of it as he makes his way to the sidewalk with his brother in his arms, one hand cupped against the back of Sam’s head, keeping him tucked up warm against him. He’s shivering so hard it’s starting to scare Dean. “Gonna get you home and warm you up, okay?”

Sam just nods, his little back lifting and falling in quick, painful shudders as he cries quietly into Dean’s neck. 

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles against Dean’s throat, over and over again. “I’m sorry, Dean.”

“Hey, ‘s okay, Sammy babe. You’re okay.”

The words go back and forth between them the whole way home, and Sam is exhausted by the time they make it to the front porch, the front of Dean’s shirt soaked with his tears.

Dean builds a nest for Sam on the couch, gathers every single blanket in the house and wraps them around him. He drags the space heater closer and puts his own hoodie on Sam and rolls up the sleeves so his hands aren’t lost in them. He smiles for how it swallows him up completely, his sweet, doll-eyed baby brother tucked up tiny and quiet in his dark grey hoodie.

He heats up some veggie soup from the night before and brings it into the living room with a sleeve of saltines, settling down on the coffee table across from Sam and leaning forward. He dips the spoon into the bowl and lifts it up, blowing on it a little and holding the spoon close to Sam’s mouth.

“Dean, I’m not… I’m okay. You don’t have to do this,” Sam protests from the mountain of blankets Dean has piled around him and over him, from under the big hood of Dean’s sweatshirt. He’s stopped trembling so much but he shivers every so often, his nose still pink with cold. Dean frowns at him, giving him his best Dad face.

“Open,” he instructs, demonstrating by opening his own mouth. Sam sighs but obeys, taking the spoonful of soup and chewing a few times before he swallows. He licks his lips and stares right into Dean’s eyes, all soft and taciturn and utterly pliant. 

“Good?” Dean asks in the most gentle hush.

Sam just nods, not even blinking while they search each other’s eyes.

He feeds his little brother until the bowl is empty and Sam is rosy-cheeked with warmth, his eyes bright with contentment but he hasn’t looked away from Dean, not once.

Dean puts the bowl on the coffee table and strips down to his t-shirt and boxer shorts and socks, and he lifts up one corner of the little world of blankets around Sam and slips in beside him. He pulls the covers up around their heads and suddenly it’s a tiny, two-person blanket fort, the air around them damp and warm and close.

He reaches into the sleeves of Sam’s hoodie and finds his hands, letting his fingers lace with Sam’s little ones that are still chilled at the tips. He leans back against the side of the couch, cushioned by at least three layers of blankets, and he tugs Sam to sprawl out on top of him, to nestle against his chest. They hold hands inside the sleeves, both of them resting on Dean’s chest, right over his heart.

“We’re staying home from school tomorrow,” Dean informs him, speaking as soft as the tiny space between them allows. “I’ll figure out a way to get us a tree. And we can decorate it. Okay?”

Sam nods in the dark, a movement Dean can feel against his neck. Sam’s little thumb is rubbing over the back of Dean’s hand in a slow, sweet circle. Dean smiles.

“Who’s my beautiful boy?” he whispers against Sam’s forehead.

Sam squirms almost fitfully on top of him, shifting so that he’s lifted up and facing Dean. He can feel his breath, hot in the stifling closeness, smelling of tomatoes and somehow of tears. Sam tucks his forehead against Dean’s, and suddenly Sam’s mouth is there so near his own, his smile invisible in the darkness but felt right down to those little dimples.

“Tell me,” Dean breathes, his hands sliding around to the delicate small of Sam’s back to splay and rub, to pull him up closer. Tighter. He feels even more heat from Sam’s body and realizes with an adoring pang that he’s blushing.

“I am,” Sam says so quiet Dean barely hears it. He smiles, their mouths ghosting before Dean tips his head up the tiniest bit to touch their noses together. 

He can’t fathom anything more intimate than this, can’t imagine a love or a romance or a lust that could surpass anything he feels for Sam. 

This has to be what it means to make love.

“Yeah, you are,” he whispers, pressing a kiss right over one of Sam’s winking dimples. “All mine.”


End file.
